Interview: Mary Costa of Disney’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’

Posted on October 5, 2008 at 8:00 am

I spoke to Mary Costa, who played the title role in the animated Disney classic “Sleeping Beauty,” about making the film and the new 50th anniversary DVD release. As Ms. Costa told me the story of her favorite scene, she recited it from memory and her voice became again exactly the voice of the young princess who has just met her one true love, the one she once danced with once upon a dream. You can get a glimpse of this scene and hear Mary Costa’s voice in the clip below from the DVD extras.

How were you cast in the role of Briar Rose/Princess Aurora?

I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and moved to California with my parents. I attended Glendale High School and appeared in the school operetta. I was invited to a dinner party with some people from the industry and people began singing. I sang “When I Fall in Love.” One of the other guests was Walter Shuman who said, “I’ve been looking for three years and I think you are it. Can you audition tomorrow morning?” The next day, I came to the studio and there was a booth with everyone I would be working with for the next three years. They asked me to sing and do a bird call. But I had a Southern accent. So they said, “Do you think you could talk with a British accent?” “Oh yes, I could!” . My father and I loved to pretend we had British accents. The next day, the phone rang and everyone in my family raced to get it. It was Walt Disney and he said, “You have been hiding the Princess Aurora in Glendale!” I had the job.

Did Walt Disney advise you about the role?

He was involved in every single detail about the movie. He said this story was the most inspirational of all the fairy tales. And he told me, “I want you to know your character so well that you have memorized everything so you can drop all of those colors into your vocal palate and paint with your voice.” He said that in the forest scenes I should let the forest caress me.

Were you working mostly by yourself in a booth or interacting with the other performers?

I worked with the godmothers a couple of times and I worked with the prince, Bill Shirley. We all had our crushes on him! The woman who played Maleficent was a petite woman but she sounded like she was nine feet tall. Verna Felton, who played one of the godmothers, was so funny.

How does it look in its newly restored edition?
For the first time I really feel I have seen this movie. The depths of color and quality of sound with this technology! The people in the audience were oo-ing and ah-ing. You will be enveloped by the sound and see things you have never seen before.

Do you have a favorite scene?

I love every scene. But one I think is the essence of romance is when Princess Aurora and the Prince are in the forest and he asks her when he can see her again.

Prince Phillip: But when will I see you again?
Princess Aurora: Oh never, never!
Prince Phillip: Never?
Princess Aurora: Well, maybe someday.
Prince Phillip: When, tomorrow?
Princess Aurora: Oh no, this evening!
Prince Phillip: Where?
Princess Aurora: At the cottage… in the glen.

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Animation Interview

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Posted on October 2, 2008 at 6:04 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material including teen drinking, sexuality, language and crude behavior
Profanity:	Very strong language for a PG-13
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Teen drinking, character gets very drunk
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic violence, no one badly hurt
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 3, 2008

There is no question that Nick (Michael Cera) and Norah (Kat Dennings) are destined for True Love. For one thing, they have the same taste in music. Nick is still making mixes for the girl who dumped him (Alexis Dziena as Tris, who doesn’t want Nick but REALLY doesn’t want him to want anyone else) because that is the best way for him to express how he feels. He does not know that Norah snags them because she may not know who he is, but she knows he is her musical soulmate. When Tris threw the most recent one into the trash (“Road to Closure: Volume XII”), Norah retrieved it and loved it.

And they share names with the most adorable couple in the history of movies, Nick and Nora Charles, played by William Powell and Myrna Loy in the “Thin Man” series. Powell and Loy, who appeared together more than any on-screen team in the sound era, were always magic together (I am especially partial to “I Love You Again”), but what made their “Thin Man” couple so unusual was that they were already married when they began. The original Nick and Nora made marriage look like fun; they were better evidence that there is such a thing as happily ever after than a hundred movies that end with a wedding.

This Nick and Norah have a way to go to get to happily ever after, but it is a journey we enjoy taking with them. First, the characters are played by two of the most endearing young performers in films today, Michael Cera (from “Juno” and “Superbad”) and Kat Dennings (“40 Year Old Virgin” and “The House Bunny”). Second, the script is fresh, funny, and real, and third it is superbly directed by Peter Sollett, whose Raising Victor Vargas showed great skill at telling stories about teenagers that feel true, immediate, and intimate.

It all takes place on one night in the small town that is New York City, or at least the part of New York that is cool for high school seniors, who cruise around and run into each other pretty much constantly except when they are trying to find each other. Nick, Norah, Tris and her new date, Nick’s kind-hearted gay bandmates, and Norah’s very drunk friend Caroline (Ari Graynor, whose dazzling smile almost completely de-tawdrifies her character’s situation, even when she’s barfing into a bus station toilet that was already plenty disgusting enough).

The film adroitly sidesteps the expected teen movie cliches. Nick and Norah are tentative about their feelings for one another but they each know who they are and they both have a level of confidence about interacting in the world and understanding what is important to them. I liked the way Norah talked about “tikkun olam,” the Jewish imperative to heal the world.” It is very nice to see a movie character, especially a young one, who draws something meaningful from religion and to see something Jewish in a movie that is not “oy vay,” bagels, or guilt. The movie also draws from the emerging world of cuddle puddles and technological omni-connectedness to move the story forward without being intrusive or showy or trying too hard to be hip. And it beautifully catches the way that falling in love at the same time transforms us and makes us our most authentic selves.

Eid Hymn

Posted on September 30, 2008 at 8:30 am

Best wishes for our Muslim friends on this holy celebration.

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Shorts Spiritual films

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Posted on September 30, 2008 at 8:00 am

“How I Met Your Mother’s” Jason Segal wrote and stars in the latest from the Apatow atelier, another raunchy comedy with a tender heart, and once again the story of a childish and helpless man who is perpetually longing for sex and love but inept with women.
Segal plays Peter who is dumped by the title character in the first scene, and who is so devastatingly nonplussed that he stands before her — and us — naked. Yes, record-keepers, while Apatow’s “Walk Hard” gave us what was probably the first mainstream close-up of an anonymous full Monty, this is the watershed moment for the R rating, at least four sightings of the Monty of the main character.
Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) is the star of a successful television series. After the deadly “We have to talk,” she tells Peter there is no one else but it is soon clear that she is now with a self-absorbed rock star named Aldous Snow (British comic Russell Brand). Peter flees to Hawaii to get away from it all only to find that Sarah and Aldous are staying at the same hotel. Peter sobs in the suite given to him by Rachel (Mila Kunis), a beautiful and sympathetic hotel manager, while Sarah and Aldous have a lot of very loud and athletic sex. Peter feels bad. He spends time with Rachel.
There are some very, very funny moments in this film, though many of them come from seeing Peter behave like a blubbering boob. Apatow regulars Paul Rudd (a happily stoned surfing instructor) and Jonah Hill (a hotel restaurant manager and major Aldous Snow fan) are underused, but Bill Heder as Peter’s brother gets in some good moments giving long-distance advice.
I’m getting a little impatient with these clueless boy-man characters, though. It may be funny that Peter (and Seth Rogan in “Knocked Up” and Steve Carell in “40 Year Old Virgin” etc. etc.) do not understand anything about women, but the people who make the movies should at least make it seem that they know a few. The Apatow crew needs to find a way to create a female character as fully-realized and messy as the men. Both Sarah and Rachel are bland and frustratingly inconsistent, behaving and reacting in whatever way Segal thinks will be funniest for Peter to react to at a given moment. It is a shame to write off, almost write out, half of the population and half of the equation in a movie about romantic complications, especially with actresses as lovely and talented as Bell and Kunis.
Segal writes some hilarious lines, and there is a deliriously random and extremely funny detour into vampire musical theater puppetry. But the film’s happiest surprise is Brand, who seems to be in his own movie, which is perfect for the role of the self-absorbed rock star. His reaction to the gift of a shirt is funnier than all four Montys and singing vampire puppets put together.

(more…)

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Comedy Romance

Iron Man

Posted on September 30, 2008 at 8:00 am

With its first self-financed production, Marvel has produced one of the best superhero movies ever made, pure popcorn pleasure for its special effects, its story, its villain, and its hero. Director Jon Favreau, star Robert Downey Jr. and a first-class screenplay mix electrifying action, a compelling drama, and top-notch performances. Plus there are the best robot-type characters since R2D2, C3PO, and Hewey, Dewey, and Louie.

Downey plays international weapons dealer/super-brain/playboy Tony Stark as a rock star. He is an industrialist who appears on the cover of Rolling Stone and dates cover girls. He has an answer for every possible question or criticism about the company he runs: “The day weapons are no longer needed to keep the peace I’ll start building beams for baby hospitals.” But he does not have an answer for himself. His own conflicts would haunt him if he would slow down for a moment to think about them. That moment comes when he is captured by jihadists on a sales tour of American armed forces in the Mideast, using his own weapons. Told to recreate his company’s most powerful weapon for them instead he creates something for himself. The mastermind of cutting edge technology reaches back to the oldest of old school combat and creates for himself a high-tech suit of armor so that he can escape. It becomes the first stage in what will transform him into Iron Man. And the more he is protected by his Iron Man suit, the more he begins to open up to himself and others about who he really is and take responsibility for the world he has helped to create.

Downey superbly conveys Stark’s vulnerability and brilliance. He makes every line of dialogue feel improvised and natural, a great counter to the over-the-top special effects and fight scenes. In this middle of this great big movie he gives a subtle performance that is every bit as compelling as the most jam-packed action footage. He evolves as the suit does, trying out new things, coming alive for the first time as he is encased in metal.

The themes of the story has some powerful resonance about America’s role in the world without being heavy-handed. There’s no time for it — everything moves quickly as Stark continues to develop his suit and is attacked by bad guys and good guys and, well, there’s another category I am not going to give away. There is strong support from Terrence Howard as Stark’s military contact and friend, Gwenyth Paltrow, who gives some snap to her role as the indispensable aide de camp, and Jeff Bridges (with his head shaved!) as Stark’s closest business associate. The visuals are bracing and powerful and the action scenes are fanboy heaven. Watch for quick cameos from director Favreau, fan Ghostface Killah, and Iron Man co-creator Stan Lee. But don’t get distracted. Downey is the literal heart of this movie, and like the appliance that keeps Stark alive, he is a power source whose potential seems limitless.